


They sing in their chains

by LiveOakWithMoss



Series: Songs of the New World [2]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Hallucinations, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-08 10:22:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1937265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveOakWithMoss/pseuds/LiveOakWithMoss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maedhros in Angband.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They sing in their chains

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [Le chant des chaînes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6930718) by [Lilyssy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilyssy/pseuds/Lilyssy)



Maedhros was swimming into blessed, velvet darkness. He reached out for it, eagerly, embracing unconsciousness, welcoming the blackness. 

A voice, blazing sweet, wrapped around him and dragged him back.

Again. 

“Ah, no, lovely one, not yet,” it whispered, and something caressed his cheek. “I cannot allow you to leave that easily. You know that, little one. Ahhh,” the whisper sank to a croon, and the caress turned razor sharp. “My flaming beauty. How I long to adorn you. How I long to bring out your colors.” Long nails carved twin gouges into his cheekbones, sliding under the skin as easily as a knife through butter. Maedhros choked on the scream rising in his throat as he felt the hot blood coursing down his face. “The blood goes _so_ well with your hair,” the voice said, considering. “And look – the bone shows through. How it brings out the color of your eyes, my dear. Open them for me.” 

 _No_ , thought Maedhros, yearning towards the darkness. _Take me away. Let it come for me._ Sometimes, he’d found, if the pain was great enough, he would faint and achieve blessed relief, for a time.

But the voice was still only playing with him. The butchery of his face was nothing, hardly enough to overwhelm him and wipe him into unconsciousness. _A pity_ , he found himself thinking bitterly. When they’d snapped all the fingers in his right hand, he’d found oblivion easily, in a brilliant flash of agony.

“Open your eyes,” the voice snarled at his ear, and Maedhros obeyed. He could only open one, of course, the other long since swollen shut. He blinked in the low, flickering light, blood dripping from his chin.

 

Standing before him was his father. 

Tall and handsome, dressed simply – so long since he’d worn anything but armor – Fëanor turned his face to his eldest son. 

“Nelyafinwë,” he said, reaching out for him. His eyes were wide with betrayal. “My son – how could you forsake me like this?” His fingers reached for Maedhros, those strong, callused fingers that had wrapped around his own when teaching him to hold a sword; the rough fingers that had brushed the hair from his brow as he dropped off to sleep as a child.

“Nelyo,” his father whispered. 

Maedhros laughed, and spat blood. 

“This is an old one,” he called, his voice, gravelly and cracked, echoing among the high ceilings. “My father? You are growing predictable.” He laughed again, a horrible sound that rang sourly in his own ears. He shifted, and the chains binding him added their iron cacophony to the room’s echoes.

“No fear, coppertop,” the voice whispered, at his side once again, and Maedhros fought the shudder that ran through him at the hot breath on his neck. Claws raked through his hair, twisting his head to the side, and he ground his teeth against the pain. Of all things, it was the sensation of his hair being lifted out at the roots that he could never get used to. “Beautiful child,” the voice purred, as a hot tongue tasted the blood on his cheeks. “We are only just beginning.” 

 _Beautiful_ , Maedhros thought, with dry hysteria. _That is something I shall never be again. Of course,_ alive _– That is also something I shall likely never be again._ He was laughing once more, until someone backhanded him into silence. 

“Watch,” hissed the voice. 

He was jerked upright, and the visions began.

 

They swam on and on, interspersed with brief, gleeful interludes of pain, until Maedhros could no longer tell what was being manifest before him from the hallucinatory projections of his own mind. 

His brothers, of course. He watched duly as the tableau spread out before him, his brothers talking animatedly, their voices coming in flickers of static noise. But his eyes fixed on Maglor in particular, whose dark head was crowned with a gold circlet, and Maedhros thought, _Stupid of me to forget. He is king now._  

Maglor’s voice rang through the room, suddenly, as beautiful and achingly familiar as Maedhros remembered it, and he closed his eyes at the wave of longing.

 _Oh, little brother, how I miss you… I am so sorry I abandoned you to this…_

“Leave him,” that musical voice was saying. “I count it no loss. His failure has betrayed us, his weakness is now no longer our burden.” 

Maedhros twisted in his chains. “Liar!” he cried to the darkness, and the voice, and the voice that was his not-brother’s. “You cannot even get a simulacrum right. If you are to torture me, at least do it right.” He laughed again, and his throat burned raw. _Fools! To think I would believe that Makalaurë could ever speak with such coldness. Even if they must leave me here_ , and a wrenching in his heart told him this was so _, he would never speak so callously. Not Makalaurë._

 

 

When he next opened his eyes, the twins stood before him, hands clasped, watching him with grave and accusing eyes. 

 _This isn’t real,_ he reminded himself fiercely, but croaked, “Ambarussa…” 

“Brother,” they said, in unison, and Maedhros flinched at the word. 

“You let me burn,” whispered Amras, and wisps of smoke began to rise from his hair and clothes. “You stood aside and let me burn…You didn’t stop them. You thought inaction was enough? You are as at fault as any of them. I thought you were the big brother, Nelyo. You told me you would always protect us…” Flames leapt up, and Amras’ skin began to blacken and burn, peeling away to reveal raw flesh and bare bone. Beside him, Amrod clung still to his hand, his face wreathed in agony, the same agony of the moment when they’d realized their brother was missing.

“I tried!” Maedhros cried, even though he knew he spoke only to phantoms and wraiths. “I never meant – if I had known – ”

“You promised to protect us!” Their voices came together in a wild scream. “You promised to protect all of us, and you failed!” 

Maedhros heaved impotently against the chains. “This isn’t real!” he shouted, to himself, to the unseen watches, to the voice laughing low in his ear. “You cannot hurt me with fragments, with fears torn from my mind...”

“I defy you!” he cried, raising his face to the ceiling. “I will not break for you!” He spat again at the feet of the burning Ambarussa, shaking so hard his shackles rattled. “Your lies and visions do not fool me.” 

He sank to his knees, eyes resolutely closed, the skin of his wrists raw under his manacles. _I can endure_ , he thought. _The blackness will come for me, eventually._

When he next opened his eyes, Fingon stood before him. 

“No,” he rasped, as those warm blue eyes smiled at him. “No, not him…” 

“Maitimo,” murmured Fingon, drawing close. “Oh, my love, what have they done to you?” 

Maedhros raised his hands before his face, shielding his eyes. “Go away."

Gentle fingers touched his cheek, below the gore, and he trembled. He _knew_ that touch. 

“You are not real,” he said, as Fingon’s fingers brushed his lips. “You’re not real, you’re not him, you’re a vision, a fake, a – ”

“A ghost,” whispered Fingon. “Dead on the Helcaraxë.” 

“No,” said Maedhros, broken in his chains. “No, it cannot be.” 

“Dead,” said Fingon, so close that Maedhros could feel the warmth of his body, smell the scent of his skin. “For love of you. I tried to follow, Maitimo, but the ice took my body and rent it by the frozen sea. Why did you leave me?” 

Maedhros jerked back, trying to recoil from the figure – _the ghost_ , his mind whispered horrified, _it could be_ – but his shackles wouldn’t let him do more than cower. 

“You let me die.” Fingon’s clear voice rang out around him. “You knew I would follow, come any obstacle. And you let me break myself upon the Grinding Ice. You let my love destroy me.” 

“ _Please_ ,” the words dragged out of Maedhros as he dropped to his knees before his cousin. He raised broken hands before him. “Enough.” 

But still Fingon watched him, with depthless sadness, and those familiar fingers stroked through the his hair, and that familiar voice echoed in his ears, and he sank to the ground, turning his hands on himself, tearing at the wounds on his face. 

“Anything but this,” he begged, at last, knowing he was breaking, hating himself for it. “Anything.”

The voice laughed. “I was waiting for you to ask.” 

- 

The kindness of Thangorodrim was that at last he was alone. Which of course, was also its cruelty. 

 _At least_ , he thought, half-mad and laughing wildly at the sky _, out here there are no ghosts._ He hung creaking in his chains, their iron voices his only company. Sometimes he spoke back to them, mimicking their metallic chatter, singing their iron songs. 

And so when the new song, the old song, the song not of the chains rose to meet him, without thinking, he caught up the tune. Then his voice cracked, and he broke off, shuddering. 

“No,” he whispered, eyes fixed on a dark head glinting with threads of gold. “No,” he said, as anguished blue eyes met his. “No, I’ve had this one before. Take it away.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> 0\. Title taken from a line by Terry Pratchett.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] They sing in their chains by LiveOakWithMoss](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5271131) by [pumpkinpodfic (thegreatpumpkin)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreatpumpkin/pseuds/pumpkinpodfic)




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